Glenn Beck and Goldline, Visualized

The good people over at Ritholtz.com have produced this beauty:

It is, as you can see, quite huge.  Click on it to get the full version.  It's both informative and funny.

Fox News and the Southern Strategy

John Chait on Fox News' renewed attempts to stir the Southern Strategy.  Keep in mind that this was written before the further validating example of Shirley Sherrod.

One of the very few impressive things about conservatives over the last few years is that their opposition to President Obama, though frequently unhinged, misinformed, hypocritical, or outright dishonest, has generally lacked much in the way of racial animus. Obviously you can find some exceptions -- Rush Limbaugh is a notable one, casting health care as "reparations" and trying to make his listeners fear that "in Obama's America," black kids can beat up white kids with impunity. Limbaugh has largely been an exception against the general trend of de-racialized nuttiness on the right.

What you're starting to see from Fox News now, though, is the most widespread and mainstream right-wing effort to exploit racial fears against Obama. The putative issue is the claim that the Obama Justice Department is failing to prosecute a voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party. If you're interested in the merits of the case, which are extremely flimsy, a good rundown can be found at Fourth Branch. Even if the conservative interpretation of this event were actually true, it's obviously a tiny matter. Nobody has produced a voter who even claims to have been intimidated -- the voters at the polling station were virtually all black anyway -- nor is there any credible claim of anything remotely approaching a systematic attempt to intimidate white voters at the polls.

It's a well made case.  Worth the read.

Final Word on New Black Panthers

Steve Bennen references the events in the items I posted earlier, then concludes with this, which I will quote to the end:

That should be the end of it, but in some Republican circles, this exceedingly dull story is being treated as a major scandal (at least, they're pretending to consider it a scandal, in the hopes of generating racial tensions before the midterm elections). In just the last few weeks, Fox News has aired 95 segments -- that's not a typo -- about the issue. Megyn Kelly, the hyper-partisan activist/anchor, not only aired 45 segments in 15 days, she lashed out at a conservative guest who dismissed the relevance of the story.

To his credit, Politico's Ben Smith ran a piece late yesterday that effectively ends the "controversy."

A scholar whom President George W. Bush appointed as vice chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Abigail Thernstrom has a reputation as a tough conservative critic of affirmative action and politically correct positions on race.


But when it comes to the investigation that the Republican-dominated commission is now conducting into the Justice Department's handling of an alleged incident of voter intimidation involving the New Black Panther Party -- a controversy that has consumed conservative media in recent months -- Thernstrom has made a dramatic break from her usual allies.


"This doesn't have to do with the Black Panthers; this has to do with their fantasies about how they could use this issue to topple the [Obama] administration," said Thernstrom, who said members of the commission voiced their political aims "in the initial discussions" of the Panther case last year.


"My fellow conservatives on the commission had this wild notion they could bring Eric Holder down and really damage the president," Thernstrom said in an interview with POLITICO.

Those pushing this garbage aren't exactly subtle in their intentions. Why hyperventilate about a two-year-old story that Bush's own Justice Department found too insignificant to care about? Because some Republicans hope to generate racial animus before the elections, trying to get white voters angry with the Obama administration.

Jon Chait explained this week, "What you're starting to see from Fox News now, though, is the most widespread and mainstream right-wing effort to exploit racial fears against Obama.... There has been a great deal of right-wing insanity unleashed over the last year and a half, but this is the first time that the fear has an explicitly racial cast. You now have the largest organ of movement conservatism promoting Limbaugh's idee fixe that the Obama administration represents black America's historical revenge against whites."

It's as disgusting as anything we've seen from the right in the past 18 months.

Fear

Look at the fear on the face of this News Reader:



And then Fox splices in footage of a nuclear explosion as they go to commercial. My God, can you get more clichéd?

Harris Poll on Extremist Views

A new poll on the views of Republicans has been published:

1. 67% of Republicans (and 40 percent of Americans overall) believe that Obama is a socialist.
2. 57% of Republicans (32 percent overall) believe that Obama is a Muslim.
3. 45% of Republicans (25 percent overall) agree with the Birthers in their belief that Obama was "not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president."
4. 38% of Republicans (20 percent overall) say that Obama is "doing many of the things that Hitler did."
5. Scariest of all, 24% of Republicans (14 percent overall) say that Obama "may be the Antichrist."

They live in an alternate reality.

Bret and Presidents

A funny 2 minutes of video:



Bret interrupted Obama 16 times in 19 minutes. Compare that with the exit interview for Bush, who exited office with one of the lowest approval ratings ever. It's fun.

KO Takes Down Bill-O on Torture

Once again, Keith-O catches Bill-O wrongfully turning our friends into War Criminals. If you recall, he did the same thing with our own soldiers in WWII, when it was in fact the Nazi's that perpetrated the crimes at Malmedy he accused our boys of committing.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Once again, Keith is indispensable.

Beck the Secessionist

Beck, in his own words:

You can’t convince me that the Founding Fathers wouldn’t allow you to secede.

The Constitution is not a suicide pact, and if a state says: ‘I don’t want to go there, because that’s suicide, they have a right to back out. They have a right — people have a right to not commit economic suicide...

...Texas says go to hell, Washington, which by the way has been said before. I believe it was Davey Crocket...it’s about time that somebody says that again."

I think that this issue might be considered settled after the little thing called the Civil War.

Obama's Successful Presidency

As a followup to the NASDAQ post, we now have the DOW above where Obama took office.  So therefore he's a successful President, and Wall Street approves of his policies.

I think that's what I've learned from Fox News and Talk Radio.

Can't Give the Queen what She Wants?

I just don't understand what gives the Fox/Talk Radio crowd the vapors these days.  They're hyperventilating now about the fact that the Obamas gave the Queen a video IPod, and the horrible breach of etiquette this represents.  It's funny, cuz I remember these same Republicans being appalled by this:

Wait, was it "appalled," or "never mentioned?" I can't remember.

Of course, this is made doubly ridiculous by the fact that the Queen requested the Video IPod. She had a previous generation IPod already, but she wanted the neat toy that could play video.  She should have gone for the Touch.

Update: DKos put together a video of the outrage, and a British spokesperson's succinct rebuttal.

Europe doesn't hate Obama?

I thought I had heard that Europe thinks Obama is taking America "to hell" with his stimulus plans and regulatory ideas?  Well, apparently not.  But I thought I heard that over and over again on talk radio and Fox News.  Do you think they didn't check their sources?  They wouldn't run with a story that wasn less than the truth just to make Obama look bad, would they?

Reporting from Los Angeles and London -- The G-20 leaders will pour at least $1 trillion into the global economy in an effort to stimulate recovery from a worldwide downturn and will push for greater regulation of the financial industry, officials said this morning.

In a televised news conference from London, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced the key elements of the plan, including an additional $500 billion for the International Monetary Fund, $250 billion in IMF Special Drawing Rights and $250 billion to boost trade.

The leaders of the major economies also pledged to work on such regulatory issues as pay and bonuses for executives and bringing financial instruments such as hedge funds into tighter government control. Many blame the new investment instruments, including derivatives and credit swaps, for the economic contraction around the world.

"This is the day that the world came together to fight back against the global recession," Brown told reporters.

"Our message today is clear and certain. We believe that in this new global age, our prosperity is indivisible,' he said. "We believe that growth, to be sustained, must be shared, and that trade must once again become an engine of growth. The old Washington consensus is over; today we have reached a new consensus."

"There are no quick fixes. But with the six pledges that we make today, we can shorten the recession and save jobs."

The six pledges may not have been everything Obama said he wanted, but it is excellent nonetheless.  And when you're dealing with someone like Obama, a cautious poker player, it's difficult to say that his "Ask" wasn't merely a strategic opening, leading to the outcome he originally desired.  A trillion dollars is no slouch, and the work to strengthen regulations is key to establishing a healthy period of real economic growth.

The Republicans really need to learn how to set expectations.  They've turned this trip from an impending disaster, where the EU rebukes Obama harshly, into a remarkable accomplishment, with Obama brokering deals and closing the breach between American and the rest of the world.

Shep Smith Hates Glenn Beck

Awwww. This is what I like to see.



Shep has always been my favorite Fox News personality. He's the only person on the network that actually seems to care about being fair.

Fox News Plagiarises from GOP

Saying that Fox News is an outlet for the Republican Party wont come as a surprise to anyone - we've known they receive Republican talking points for quite some time based on whistle blower accounts and statements from Bush's own Press Secretary. But now we've got hard documentary evidence.

The following graphic was presented as the product of Fox News' network research department.  "We took a look at how..." the Stimulus Bill grew, they said. But, in fact, it's straight from the Republican Party press release from that morning. How do we know? Check out the date at the bottom.


December 2009, huh? Unsurprisingly, that's the exact same typo that appeared in the Republican press release.

Go ahead and continue being a mouthpiece for the GOP, Fox. But at least tell us when you're copying and pasting.

PA Laughs at Fox News

Fox News just can't get a break this cycle.  In this video a reporter takes a poll of the room and only Obama supporters respond.  He reports "an even split here," to which people guffaw:



It's never good when your subjects laugh at you on camera.

Ingraham Off-Air = Evil Beast

(Just in case you missed it, for context:)



If you enjoy watching Fox News people be angry, then you can watch Laura Ingraham just absolutely hate on everyone in the studio for 9 solid minutes. Fun stuff, for those into reveling in the pain of their enemies.

It's even got them mentioning that a "some Hispanic-looking man" must be an illegal. Awesome.

Fox News on Eductaion!

Haha!


Good old Fox News, always good for a laugh.

Racism

Another racist attack on Obama.


There you go. Beautiful.

Obama wants to pop a cap in divisiveness' ass! He don't love them hos! He's going to be selling crack outta the White House!

Fox News gets everything wrong

Fox News is saying that protesters for the Democratic Convention are preparing to have the Brown Note Generator used against them.

Of course, this will be difficult because such a weapon does not exist. In fact, such a "note" does not exist. The Mythbusters busted the hell outta that one. Once again, Fox News couldn't be bothered to do 3 minutes of Googling before putting it's crap on the air.

Angry at Gonzales? You Must be a Republican!

Here's yet another example of Fox News screenshot bias. I report, you decide:


After all, if you slam a Bush royalist like this, you must be a Democrat.



It's time to impeach Gonzales. His testimony is routinely perjurious. If we don't impeach, the precedent is set.

Kristol, just for The Record

I have had people ask why I am so dismissive of William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, who we are subjected to every weekend on Fox News Sunday. "His odious spew is one of the most regular eruptions known to man," over breakfast. That sort of thing.

Although much more material could be produced if you know how to use the Google, a single gem comes to mind. Kos does the work so I don't have to:

Bill Kristol, very respectable member of the chattering class, on NPR's Fresh Air, April 1, 2003:

There's been a certain amount of pop sociology in America ... that the Shia can't get along with the Sunni and the Shia in Iraq just want to establish some kind of Islamic fundamentalist regime. There's almost no evidence of that at all. Iraq's always been very secular.

That is a stupid, stupid man, who we should not pay attention to again. It is his Fox News and neoconservative ilk who created this war. Bush just pulled the trigger.